Major League Baseball and the Players Association today announced the full roster that will travel for next week’s Japan All-Star Series against Japan’s national team. There are no current Yankees on the squad — the one listed as a Yankees player is Chris Capuano, who’s currently a free agent — but the team is filled with former Yankees including Robinson Cano, Mark Melancon, Eduardo Nunez, Randy Choate and Jose Veras.

There’s no room at the moment for Ivan Nova, and yet doesn’t it seem like it’s time to make room again in the rotation? He has been excellent since he has been back from the minors, especially in this 3-2 win over the Orioles, his first career complete game. And it came with just three hits and one walk allowed, plus 11 strikeouts.

Nova would seem to have more of an upside than David Phelps, especially if the 26-year-old righty has indeed found his old consistency that abandoned him a year ago.

The Yankees could give him a start again with just nine games to go until the All-Star break. Eventually, though, they may have to make a decision. Plus, they have such a short bench with 13 pitchers here.

Nova said he had everything working, including that mid-90s fastball, some changeups and again that great curveball.

“His curveball was about as good as I’ve seen a curveball from anyone,” Vernon Wells said.

Nova was told along the way by a couple of teammates that the Yankees were going to win this game, and he believed it, too.

“I never thought we were going to lose,” Nova said. “I was positive the whole night.”

It took Baltimore’s shaky closer to help shake out a couple of runs in the ninth. Jim Johnson blew his sixth save in 35 chances and dropped to 2-7. His ERA rose to 4.02. One of the two runs in the ninth was unearned thanks to Johnson’s error on Brett Gardner’s bunt. But David Adams helped as well, opening the ninth with a single. And Wells helped with his ground single to left to touch off the celebration.

The Yankees not only won their season-high-tying fifth straight despite struggling offensively again, but they snapped their five-game losing streak against the Orioles, improving to 4-6 against them.

“That team over there has had our number,” Wells said. “They’ve played well against us even in the games that we’ve won. … We were just able to come through late (tonight). But we need to win games like that. We haven’t done it enough. We were doing it early in the season. Hopefully we can get back to doing that.”

Hiroki Kuroda felt good after his bullpen session and will be slotted back into the rotation if his hip flexor feels the same Saturday.

Eduardo Nunez went 3 for 3 with a walk and an RBI in his rehab game with Trenton against Reading. Besides Derek Jeter and Michael Pineda being scheduled for rehab work Saturday night with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre against visiting Lehigh Valley, Alex Rodriguez is scheduled for a rehab game Saturday night with Single-A Tampa against the Brevard County Manatees at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Fla.

Eduardo Nunez was supposedly feeling good again. But his strained left oblique had other ideas.

“We thought he was ready to go again and he took swings today, and I guess he’s not ready to go again,” Joe Girardi said. “He did a bunch of drills the other day and said, ‘I feel great. Let’s try it again.’ And it didn’t work.

“I think you just continue to rest and then you try it again in a little while.”

This didn’t seem like a longterm thing when it happened. But Nunez has been on the DL since May 12 and that was retroactive to May 6. This game tonight will mark the 28th he has missed while on the DL.

“It’s kind of how the year has went in a sense,” Girardi said. “We thought we’d get him back after a week of sitting him down. He wasn’t ready to go. Obliques are hard. They’re hard muscles to heal sometimes.”

Lyle Overbay is in right for the second straight game after 1,272 at first. Girardi said he wanted to give Brett Gardner a rest, so Ichiro Suzuki will move over to center. But he also said Overbay may be out in right tomorrow, too.

“I don’t think I’m necessarily thinking three or four nights a week,” Girardi said. “When you’re in a long stretch, if you’re going to run a guy out there in a long stretch, you kind of like to do it bang, bang, bang, because he’s kind of in the feel of the game.”

Andy Pettitte made it clear after his start last night he doesn’t want to cut back on his between-start throwing. Girardi indicated he doesn’t have a problem with that.

“One of the things that gives players confidence is when they feel that they are prepared,” Girardi said. “So the one thing I don’t want to stop or hinder is Andy feeling he’s prepared.”

“It’s starting to get out of control now,” Vernon Wells said. “At first I was like, ‘OK a few injuries. It’s normal.’ And each week, something new.

“It’s not what you want obviously. But we’re not going to make excuses. We’ve still got to go out and win games no matter who’s in the lineup or who’s on the mound.”

They are doing well to cope despite 10 guys on the DL, sitting at 18-12 after Sunday’s 5-4 loss to the A’s. There’s going to be an All-Star lineup rehabbing today at the minor-league complex in Tampa.

Eduardo Nunez at least had his MRI come back negative after he came out of the series finale with tightness in the front of his left rib cage. The shortstop said he felt something up with his stomach in the first inning. He thought it had to do with food. Then it was bothering him to swing and throw, so Joe Girardi pulled him after four. Nunez is day-to-day and may not be good to go yet Tuesday night in Colorado.

Nunez was feeling down after he got back to the Stadium from New York Presbyterian. This is his chance to play with Derek Jeter down for at least the first half of the season. Nunez had already missed a pair of games on two occasions after getting hit by pitches.

“I feel bad for myself,” Nunez said. “This is an opportunity for me. … There’s nothing I can do.”

Andy Pettitte felt rather helpless to fix his release point problems Sunday. Here’s the link to my story detailing his struggle for the second straight start (complete with video I shot of Girardi talking about his lack of concern about it at the moment) and the other happenings in Sunday’s game. And here’s a link to my story on Curtis Granderson possibly not heading back to center after all, plus an update on David Robertson.

Welcome to May. The Yankees finished April at 16-10 after Tuesday night’s 7-4 win over Houston. They also finished with nine players on the disabled list.

In other words, they have no complaints with the record after the first month. No one should, considering all the injuries.

“I think our guys did a very good job, especially with the start we had, 1-4,” Joe Girardi said.

The pitching has been good. The offense has done just enough. The homer total has been running first in the AL. And the new guys have pitched in well.

“They brought in really good dudes, a lot of veteran guys, good character guys,” said one of the new guys, Travis Hafner. “The clubhouse has been great. Everyone gets along well.”

One of the old guys has begun to heat up. Ichiro Suzuki is batting .407 over his last seven games.

But the Yankees could use Eduardo Nunez to start hitting consistently, too.

“It would be great because he’s done a wonderful job defensively the first month for us, just great,” Girardi said.

The shortstop has his first three-hit game Tuesday night since April 4. He had three hits over his previous six games combined. Two of his three hits in the win over Houston were doubles, one more extra-base hit than he had the entire season. He raised his average from .169 to .203.

“We really believe that this kid is going to hit,” Girardi said. “To get him going, with the speed that he has, creates problems for the defense, for the pitchers, it would help us a lot.”

Here’s the link to my story on the April finale and the contributions by Hiroki Kuroda and Hafner so far. Also, here’s a link to my Yankees notebook with items on the mistake made by playing Kevin Youkilis Saturday and the lack of depth in the infield, plus on new rookie infielder Corban Joseph and some injury updates. And finally here’s a link to my feature story of the day. It’s on new lefty Vidal Nuno and his path from the independent Frontier League to the Bronx. Thanks for reading everyone. I’ll be back with you Sunday.

Hiroki Kuroda somehow managed to last seven innings and 108 pitches after throwing 67 in the first three. He has great survival skills.

The 38-year-old righty stranded seven Astros in the first three innings.

“Today, like my last outing, my balance was off mechanically,” Kuroda said. “My release point was off, too.”

But Larry Rothschild made a suggestion — work from the stretch all the time. Kuroda doesn’t like doing that, but he followed what he was told. And he retired 14 of his last 15 batters. He ended up allowing no runs, four hits and four walks, and he fanned eight. So after this 7-4 win, his April looked like this: six starts, 4-1, 2.25 ERA.

Travis Hafner’s April looked like this: .318, six homers, 17 RBI, 21 hits. The RBI and hit totals were his best in a calendar month since September 2007.

“I think swing-wise, it’s gotten a little more consistent as the season has gone on,” Hafner said. “It’s been great playing here. I’m really enjoying it.”

Joe Girardi is enjoying the view of his new 35-year-old DH: “You just see that his approach is good. He has been great in that four-hole for us. With all the people that we have out, he’s really done a good job in our lineup.”

Ichiro Suzuki is helping out in the lineup again. He went 3 for 5 and is batting .407 (11 for 27) in his last seven games. This run has boosted his average 68 points, from .200 to .268.

Eduardo Nunez started the night at .169, but he had three hits to move to .203. It marked his first multihit game since April 4. He had two doubles, one more than his extra-base hit total for the season coming in.

Mariano Rivera had his best April ever for saves, going 10 for 10 after getting the final out in this game. Does he really have to retire?

Derek Jeter is gone until at least after the All-Star break after breaking his left ankle again. (My article today about the situation). The Yankees are getting used to bad injury news. They’ve had a lot of practice reacting so far this year.

“He’s our captain, leader,” Phil Hughes said. “It’s never good news when guys are going to be out longer than you expect. But we’ve got to continue to battle along like we have been.”

The Yankees have won seven of their last nine to move to 8-6.

“It’s tough, but we haven’t had him yet,” Brett Gardner said. “When you don’t have guys, you can’t really count on them to come back. You’ve just got to make do with what you’ve got. I feel like we’ve been playing pretty good baseball so far. We’ll try to keep it going.”

Of course, Eduardo Nunez becomes even more of a key figure as the main man replacing Jeter. Nunez made his first error of the season, on a bad throw to first, in Thursday night’s 12-inning, 6-2 setback to the Diamondbacks. He also missed a grounder he probably should have had. But his defense has been better overall so far than last year. Now he needs to stay consistent. And hit more. He’s batting .233 over his 11 games.

Before the game, and before the update came on Jeter, Nunez said, “I hope he comes back this year. I hope he comes back healthy. But I’m prepared to play all year. … This is what I’ve been working for all my life.”

After the game and the update, Nunez expressed mixed feelings, saying, “It’s good for me to keep playing, but it’s not what I’m looking for.”

Also, Phil Hughes was much improved Thursday night (here’s that story), so at least he can try to build off that. And in my Yankees notebook for today, I write about Travis Hafner’s good health being a key, have Brian Cashman explaining why it’s hard right now to bring in shortstop reinforcements and look ahead to the Toronto series that starts tonight.

It’s been said that Joe Girardi has one of the easiest jobs in baseball: Just write down the names of a bunch of superstars, call it a lineup, and go win 95 games. Things are a bit different this season, and Girardi acknowledged that this Opening Day lineup took him a little longer than usual.

“It’s a little bit more,” he said. “You look at some of the positions that you’re going to do, and more about where you’re going to put guys in the lineup, in a sense, than maybe who’s playing. Trying to divide up your lefties a little bit against Lester, and having some new faces in Wells and Francisco, trying to figure out where to put them. So there was a little bit more thought.”

Girardi settled on moving Eduardo Nunez near the top of the lineup, strictly to split the lefties. Ichiro Suzuki is batting seventh today, but Girardi said Ichiro will move up to the No. 2 spot when the Yankees face right-hander Clay Buchholz on Wednesday.

“We’ve liked the way Nuney has swung the bat,” Girardi said. “I didn’t particularly want to put three lefties in a row against Lester to start the game. We’ve liked Gardy’s ability to get on base, so I put him in the leadoff spot. And without Jeet, I thought we should put a right-hander in there, and we’ve liked what Nuney has done.”

• Based on this spring’s catching matchups, I really assumed Chris Stewart would catch CC Sabathia today. Then again, I also thought Girardi would stick with Ichiro in the No. 2 spot even against a lefty, so what do I know? “I think the first month, it will be somewhat of a process of figuring out exactly how you’re going to (use the catchers),” Girardi said. “You can play spring training games, but playing in-season games is different. The things you have to handle are different. Your emotions are different. It was something that I thought about the last three or four days. Talked to my coaches about it, and right now it’s probably going to be a fairly even split.”

• It’s worth noting that Cervelli is actually a career .317/.414/.393 hitter against lefties.

• According to Brian Cashman, Derek Jeter is scheduled to play catch and undergo treatment today. “There is no exact schedule for Derek because it’s what his ankle allows him to do,” Girardi said. “And we’re really not going to know that until he goes out there.”

• Have not seen Alex Rodriguez, but apparently he’s here. It’s still unclear just how much of the pregame ceremonies he’ll be a part of. “Introductions are usually not the first thing on my mind when I come in here,” Girardi said. “I’m anxious to see him. I want to see how he’s moving around in a sense because I haven’t seen him since, probably the end of January when he was just starting to ride a bike. What he chooses to do today is his prerogative, and I’m fine with whatever he chooses to do.”

• Also no sign of Mark Teixeira, who’s supposed to visit the doctor this morning. I know he was expecting to be out of the checkup in time to be here for the ceremonies.

• A few observations from the clubhouse: Dave Robertson’s has been given a new locker, the one right next to Mariano Rivera. Eduardo Nunez also has a new locker in between Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez. Francisco Cervelli’s old locker now belongs to Chris Stewart, so he’s in Nick Swisher’s old locker. Joba Chamberlain moved to Robertson’s old locker, David Phelps move to Chamberlain’s old locker, Cody Eppley moved to Phelps’ old locker, and Adam Warren has Eppley’s old locker.

• Not great news for Brennan Boesch and Lyle Overbay: They have the lockers generally given to players who bounce back and forth from Triple-A.

• In case it didn’t go without saying, Girardi said the Yankees will stick with just one left-handed reliever for the time being. “You look at our eighth inning and our ninth inning, and that’s nailed down,” Girardi said. “My hope is Joba will nail down the seventh inning. If there’s a lefty we want Boone to face in the seventh inning, we might do that, and then have Joba go after the righties. But I figure, if you can nail down the seventh, eighth and ninth, you can use Boonie earlier.”

• Someone from a Japanese television station said during Girardi’s pregame press conference that Hideki Matsui has been given Japan’s highest civilian honor. “Congratulations to Hideki,” Girardi said. “I think everybody is aware of what this organization thinks of Hideki Matsui. He’s a wonderful man, he was a wonderful player. Did a lot for the New York Yankees in his time here, and represented us very, very well. I think from the Yankees standpoint, we’d like to congratulate him because he’s a man who deserves a great honor.”

• The Yankees will honor the Sandy Hook victims and first responders before today’s game. “I think it’s important to say thank you,” Girardi said. “The town of Newtown has went through so much during the last four or five months, six months, and you think about being a responder. Sometimes we don’t think about what they go through, and how important they are during a situation like that. I think it’s nice that we’re getting an opportunity to say thank you for all that you do, because they’re obviously going to do more as the future goes on.”

Tony Pena was running the machine for today’s pop up and fly ball drill on the main field. At one point, I noticed he seemed to be aiming the machine right at me. You’ll notice in the video below, after Dan Johnson makes a play in foul territory, I’m pretty slow turning the camera back to the field. I’d actually turned my head to Pena to try to determine whether I need to get out of the way.

It’s going to be a while before Derek Jeter is ready to play in games, and that means playing time for someone else. Most notably, it means playing time for Eduardo Nunez.

“I can’t kill him,” Joe Girardi said. “I can’t play him nine innings every day, but he’s going to play a substantial amount.”

Nunez and Jeter went through shortstop drills together again today, and the Yankees plan to keep Nunez at short this spring, and there’s little doubt that the Yankees idea of letting Jeter DH against lefties in the regular season leaves a legitimate opportunity for Nunez to get big league playing time again.

“I want Jeter to be healthy again and play how he plays,” Nunez said. “But for now, it’s my opportunity to show I can play every day and show I can play defense. I can do different things than people think I can do. … I feel great right now. My confidence is (high). I know what I can do. I know what kind of player I can be, and that I can be right now.”

Girardi said the Yankees will look for consistency out of Nunez, and that should come as little surprise. Nunez has shown flashes of being a valuable big leaguer — most recently, he played well during his short time playing in Jeter’s place during the ALCS — but his defensive lapses are well documented.

“He has to earn it,” Girardi said. “We’ve got to toy with some different options, but we liked what he did at the end of last year. We know he provides a lot of excitement. Our plans are probably to keep him at short for the most part — we did talk about that — but he does have to earn it.”

Girardi said there’s a chance the Yankees could carry both Nunez and Jayson Nix, but it would leave the Yankees without a left-handed pinch hitter, which they’d like to have. Ultimately, Girardi repeated his familiar promise to carry the best players to make up the best team. Nunez will have a chance to put himself in that group.

“Jeter’s a Gold Glove,” Nunez said. “Cano’s a Gold Glove. (So are) Teixeira and A-Rod. You don’t see too many errors from these guys. When they come to me, I make an error, it’s a big thing. … It was a little bit in my mind, frustration for that, but I thank Jeter, thank A-Rod (and) thank Cano. They talked to me a lot and teach me how to fix that.”

• Here’s Girardi explaining the Phil Hughes injury: “It’s upper back, up here by his shoulder blades, so we’ll see how he is in a couple of days. The good thing is he was ahead of where he probably would normally be at this time, which helps. … You’re usually more concerned about the lower lingering. But until it’s gone, it’s going to linger. That’s like a Yogi-ism.”

• Despite being ahead of most of the other big league pitchers, Hughes was not in consideration to start Saturday’s spring opener even before the injury.

• Austin Romine said he’s more or less stopped thinking about his back. He doesn’t really notice it any more. Bascially a week into spring training and Romine’s had no problems so far. He’s very optimistic that he’s gotten past the problem.

• Haven’t heard much about Michael Pineda lately. He said today that his shoulder still feels good, but he’s not scheduled for another bullpen until Friday.

• David Phelps gets the opening start on Saturday, and although Girardi didn’t talk about it today, he’s always made it clear in the past that early spring outings don’t carry a lot of weight. I can’t imagine Phelps is going to feel that way. This is what he said earlier in camp: “I pushed myself a little more in the offseason so my arm is ready a little quicker during spring training because I’m trying to make an impression.”

• Speaking of making an impression, I didn’t see it, but there was some buzz today about Ichiro Suzuki’s behind-the-back catch during outfield drills. I asked Brett Gardner to describe it and Gardner started laughing. “That’s my fault,” he said. “I told him to do it.” Gardner said that Ichiro has a variety of behind-the-back catches that he’ll do every once in while when the team is shagging fly balls. Gardner wanted to see a few today, and Ichiro was up to the task. Girardi said he didn’t see Ichiro do it today, but “I’ve seen him do it before,” Girardi said.

• Mark Teixeira’s last day in Yankees camp is March 2. Robinson Cano’s last day is March 3. After that, those two will join their World Baseball Classic teams to prepare for the tournament.

• Random conversation of the day was with new outfielder Thomas Neal. If a handshake is any indication of a man’s strength, Neal just might be a 40-homer guy. I’m not sure how he uses a cell phone without crushing it. Seriously, Neal said he got some interest from the Yankees pretty soon after being designated for assignment, but he took some time making his decision on where to sign. He decided the Yankees were the best fit, with the potential for a real opportunity.

• Matt Diaz tried to convince me to write a story about his son’s tee-ball team. Seriously. He thinks that group has a real shot this year.